whinging_pom

I've been here a few years now. I can't comment on secondary education from personal experience but we've been seen three primaries: 1 state (in a very good area) and 2 catholic (in goodish areas).

My experience has been consistent:

o Reading and arithmetic teaching is shockingly poor in the early years and not a patch on the UK. If you make up for this at home your kid will do well. It picks up in year three but the trouble is by then a significant minority of the kids have real problems - mainly unecessarily from my perspective because of the crap teaching- and struggle to keep up.

o In things like science, civic duty, sports, etc. the schooling has been excellent. I've been very pleasantly surprised by the level of knoweldge in some areas.

o In mid to upper primary, providing your kid hasn't been compromised by his early years, the schooling isn't bad. Still, as in the UK, a bit sloppy on stuff like grammar and short changing the kids there (seem to think anything other than the basic noun/verb/adjective is too dificult and irrelevant for kids).

o OBE and OBE report cards are woeful and wishy washy touch-feely. I've a good numerate degree and a repsonsible job and I struggled to understand how my kids are performing from the report cards.

Bottom line: take some responsibility for your kids and spend half an hour a night with them on the basics whether or not the school gives homework and they'll probably do fine. Leave it to the school at your own risk. I'd be very careful about sending them to a state school in a dodgy suburb - if the ones in the good suburbs are bad on basics in the early years the dodgier ones may be atrocious.

NKSK version 2

This is not my intention - and I apologise if this is what I appeared to say.

I'm attacking the system not parents. My kids aren't going to be brain surgeons - but that doesn't mean that I don't want them stretched to their limits academically. A grade B student across the board is excellent - if this is her potential being realised. The danger is that in the wrong school or with the wrong teacher, a grade B student could easily become a grade C student. It's all about achieving a child's potential not about everyone being a rocket scientist.

Kim - or whoever - earlier said that they no houses were less than $900K in the catchmenst of these schools. That plainly is not true and many of the later posts stemmed from this.

We all can only make choices which are practical. My kids won't be going to my first choice school. The overall point of my involvement in this thread is not to denounce parents who don't have a choice, it's about the WA govt and the Australian federal govt for that matter, not encouraging consistent, systematic improvement in schools by providing transparency and accountability.

Kim67

Wasn't me mate - I wouldn't live more than 5km out of the Perth city and I don't. Same when we lived in Brisbane - I'm an inner city dweller purely to give my kids the best opportunities they can have. Moving to Dubai in the next couple of weeks though so that will probably be a different story. Kim

Kim67

By the way NKSK you seem to be really pushing Churchlands. I've come back to Perth after a decade away and all I remember of this school is the most horrific school murder Perth has ever had. I know this has nothing to do with the standard of education at the school, but just goes to prove that no school is perfect.

melbournegirl

As you said this has been your experience wherever you are but mine has been the opposite. I think the teaching of reading and maths is excellent in my experience. My daughter was reading 200 page novels after six months at school. Granted she is well ahead of average but my other daughter who is average academically was able to read fluently after her first year as were most of the other kids in her grade. I attribute this to the excellent teaching they have received. There were a few children who struggled but they were given reading recovery one-on-one with a reading recovery teacher and they soon caught up to the rest of the class. Friends of our arrived from the UK with their two kids and they both needed reading recovery to catch up to the rest of the kids in the class.

I can only speak for Victoria and not W.A. but primary schools here are generally good to excellent and if our school is any example the teachers are second to none.

kez81

A few parents i knew from my daughters old school choose to take there kids from school and start home schooling its seems to be a common thing over here.

NKSK version 2

I'm not pushing Churchlands at all - I can't find a post where I've pushed it over another.

Did you want to infer that because it was the only high performing school where a murder took place?

I've already stated which schools (plural) I think are the best in Perth.

NKSK version 2

Great points.

NKSK version 2

I don't think that there is any doubt that fantastic teachers and fantastic schools exist throughout Australia.

The problem is that there is a refusal on the part of the state governments in particular to provide parents with the explicit information which they need to make decisions about what is best for their child.

Consequently you have parents expressing hearsay as gospel that School A is good or School B is bad (because there was a murder in 1996) without any evidence to the contrary.

My own feeling is that it is a fundamental right for all parents who entrust the state with the education of their child to know how well their school is performing. In Australia you just can't get that information - no qualitative-based inspection reports, no quantitive, comparable test results, no standards based age-related infiormation which tells you where your child is at and where they should be at (in easy to understand terminology). Nothimg apart from TEE results.

How can this be acceptable in the 21st Century in one of the richest countries in the world?

Ozzidoc

I actually looked at doing this 13 years ago!! The salaries were HUGE!!

Kim67

As I've said several times NKSK, I've actually tried state, private and catholic schooling for my kids in more than one suburb and state of australia - so I think my opinion on schooling is based on a little more than hearsay.

Kim67

As I've also said before, what about National testing of Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 (used to be state based). Parents receive a report detailing how their child compares to the national average.

NKSK version 2

You do take things very personally don't you?

This isn't about you. It's about the general situation - the WA/Australian education system and parents.

NKSK version 2

Have you got your report?

Kim67

Have got state based one from Year 3 a couple of years ago, but don't have any kids in 3, 5, 7 or 9 this year. What about you?